A devilishly Supreme Chef
Dogma, the Earl of Poor Eating comes to train high school student Satoru into the perfect chef. But what awaits Satoru at the end of his training is only death. Dogma himself is not an ordinary noble but a demon from hell who promises to eat his soul, spiced with a lifetime of cooking expertise. Will Satoru abandon his normal life to become the puppet of this demonic earl? How will he cope with his life's expiry tag?Let’s have a taste of this Heresy Gourmet!
Hell's Kitchen is a Shōnen cooking manga drawn by Amashi Gumi and written by Nishimura Mitsuru, who also authors Nobunaga no Chef. The manga ran in Shonen Rival from 2010 to 2014, ending with 13 volumes and 53 chapters.
Not to be confused with Gordon Ramsay's series Hell's Kitchen. Also do not confuse with Hell Kitchen, the former name of The Boy Who Fell.
Tropes
- Affably Evil: Dogma is doing a good job of whipping Satoru into top-chef-shape, and is sort of nice at times, but plans to eat Satoru's soul once he becomes a true chef.
- Ax-Crazy: Kumoi Mitsurou has shades of this. Not exactly helped by him stabbing a guy with a crab shell in his first appearance, and then licking the blood.
- Badass on Paper: Satoru has a reputation for extreme violence and astonishing bravery mostly due to Dogma possessing him or inflicting all kinds of punishment in public. Since no one can see him, it comes across as Satoru being crazy.
- Big Eater: Surprisingly, Hakka. Being a food blogger helps though.
- Butt-Monkey: Morisaki
- Satoru also is this at the hands of Dogma.
- Chainsaw Good: The Agriculture Department seems to think so, as at least one booby-trapped scarecrow has them for arms.
- Nao's response to Sagane getting out a big, spiky knife? Pull out a bigger chainsaw.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Nakarai Gien
- Hakka also counts as a milder example
- The agriculture department dean, who sleeps only in healthy environments for plants and animals. If he sleeps in your field it'll have a good harvest for three years, and his strength doubles while on his department's turf!
- Creepy Child: Technically a teen,Tachibana has some seriously creepy moments.
- Also Sagane.
- The fact the Levi thinks he can kidnap a girl for what is essentially his harem in front of an entire student body is pretty disturbing.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: Chapter 8 begins with Satoru and Dogma seeing Morisaki strung up like a scarecrow, courtesy of the agriculture department. Satoru concludes that the cooking and agriculture guys "aren't very close." Then it happens to him.
- Companion Cube: Sagane calls her many knives her children and named all 200 of them. Thankfully, this is as far as she goes with this trope- for now, anyway.
- Consulting Mr Puppet: Gien makes his animal oven mitts fight each other, Calling Your Attacks and all. He's more eccentric than insane, though.
- Deal with the Devil: Satoru with Dogma, unlike most examples, it's entirely against his will
- Demonic Possession: See People Puppets below.
- Duels Decide Everything: With cooking!
- The manga does occasionally subvert this. In the Science Department and Cooking department cook-off, the science department wins but it's rendered moot because the point is that even with science there can never be perfection, only progress and so there is a point for both disciplines. In the Agricultural and Cooking department cook-off, Satoru comes in a shows how one needs both cooking and ingredients to get the best meal possible.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Happens to anyone who Dogma thinks could potentially harm Satoru's development into a true chef.
- Case in point: Morisaki Yoh, who is set on fire by Dogma when he tries to show Satoru how to use the food processor correctly.
- And in Chapter 5, Tachibana is faced with this question: how do you get a mysterious spice whose scent you can't identify from a guy who won't give it to you? Why, bring him to your lair and feed him paralysis-inducing curry so you can kill him, of course! Thankfully, ends up resolved in a cooking competition. As of chapter 10 he's still interested in that smell, though.
- Elaborate University High: Shokusen is huge. It has farms in the middle of a city in JAPAN, for goodness sake! And apparently it's own bioengineering division... in a high school.
- Epic Fail: Satoru manages to do several of these when he first starts attending Shokusen. The most noteworthy being when Dogma sets Morisaki on fire, and Satoru tries to put it out with a bottle of water... which turns out to be a bottle of alcohol or oil, thus only making it worse.
- Foreign Queasine: In chapter 11 the cooking department head tries to prevent the service department dean from tempting away any more of her students by winning over their stomachs. Unfortunately, the food she chooses for this purpose is surströmming.
- From Bad to Worse: In chapter 3, Morisaki decides to show Satoru how to use the mixer since losing to someone that incompetent makes him look bad. Dogma, not wanting his food spoiled, sets him on fire. Satoru tries to help by getting a large bottle of water. It wasn't water: it was flammable.
- Genius Ditz: Nakarai may be under Consulting Mr Puppet and Cloudcuckoolander,and rightfully so, but he is an incredibly talented cook. A cook who hides in the kitchen washing machine to be early to the supplementary lesson, but a talented cook nonetheless.
- Hakka seems very ditzy but is revealed to be a Michelin recognized food critic.
- Honestly everyone is either a Genius Ditz or Bunny-Ears Lawyer or both
- Groin Attack: Poor Satoru is woken up by (who else?)Dogma like this in Chapter 2. And right in the middle of an adorable dream about Hakka, too!
- Hellish Pupils: Dogma (of course)
- Holy Burns Evil: Satoru tries to make use of this trope on Dogma in chapter 2. It fails.
- Hotblooded: Morisaki Yoh. Gets yelled at for it in chapter 2.
- I'm a Humanitarian: In chapter 15, Dogma, having become human from a potion, experiences hunger. He decides to dangle Satoru upside down from a crane and demand food as ransom. As time goes on as he rejects dish after dish, he coats him in flour, eggs, and then panko crumbs, at which point the news anchor who has been reporting on the hostage situation realizes that if the next meal isn't good enough, he'll fry and eat Satoru instead!
- Innocently Insensitive: Satoru manages to insult Nao and the entire Agricultural Department by saying that he simply wants organic food without pesticides. He didn't mean harm but it insulted their pride and caused outright war between the two
- Instant Cosplay Surprise: Levi does this to Elle in chapter 10.
- Invisible to Normals: Satoru is the only one who can see Dogma. until the end of Chapter 14, that is...except that in Chapter 15 it's revealed that he used a potion to temporarily become human. The good news for Satoru is that it wears off at the end of the chapter(All be it not before the incident under I'm a Humanitarian occurs). The bad news is that Dogma can use it again, and he plans to.
- Irony: Dogma is a demon with crosses for pupils.
- Jerkass: Dogma
- Lost Him in a Card Game: Almost happens to Elle when Satoru can't get Morisaki and Tachibana to work together for the sweets challange against Levi. Thankfully, Dogma takes over and molotov-cocktails Levi's helicopter, at which point Tachibana catchs her.Morisaki:Tachibana! Stop stealing all the good parts!
- No Ending: The manga ends with what seems to be the start of another arc. Satoru and the others enroll in the course of Heavenly Chef, apparently the hardest course in school, Beelzebub, Dogma's enemy, shows up and hurts him in the eye, Dogma finds a man in the academy that actually has the soul of a true chef and Beelzebub's assistant Sou is sent to participate in the Heavenly Chef course as a human, which is the final scene of the manga before it ends.
- Noble Demon: Dogma, though a jerk, won't eat Satoru before he becomes a true chef. Won't stop him from eating when he does become one, though. Bonus points for being an Earl, if demon titles work like human ones.
- Non Sequitur, *Thud*: Morisaki's story about how he started cooking at the end of chapter 10.Morisaki: Both my parents worked, so I had to be the man of the household."
Young Morisaki: Let's play with bowls... and make BOOBS!!!Morisaki: It was well-received by the kids. Ah, cooking was so fun back then...
Satoru (face blank with shock): What does that have to do with cooking...!? - Oh, Crap!: The reaction many people have when witnessing Satoru under Dogma's control
- Satoru's reaction in a nutshell in chapter 14 when he realizes that other people are seeing Dogma, when normally only he can.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In chapter 5, when Dogma not only allows Satoru to take cooking advice from another student, but actually asks Satoru to let Tachibana teach them while smiling, Satoru is absolutely horrified.
- Only Sane Man: Satoru
- Our Demons Are Different: Dogma looks like a human with some seriously long hair, barring his fangs and freaky, cross-shaped pupils.
- Our Ghouls Are Creepier: Dogma threatens to feed Satoru to the ghouls in the first chapter. They look...
unpleasant. - People Puppets: What Dogma occasionally subjects Satoru to, using a device called Hell's Marionette, which can potentially turn the person its used on into a doll.
- Pretty Boy:
- Dogma. In Chapter 15 when he temporarily becomes human, almost everyone comments on his attractiveness
- Levi is acknowledged as this in-universe. When he first arrives in Shokusen, the girls think he looks like a doll. The guys call him a "girly bastard".
- Refuge in Audacity: Levi Golgotha somehow thought that making it rain expensive chocolate for the girls, supposedly enrolling in Shokusen, and then trying to drag Elle back to France to be one of his "Levi's Angels" would go unnoticed.
- The Rival: Satoru receives the designation "R" from Gien.
- Serious Business: Cooking. And if a character thinks a certain thing is the source of all good cooking, they will treat that very seriously.
- And the Agriculture Department takes agriculture seriously.
- Scary Scarecrow: Being hung up as one by the agriculture department does NOT look fun.
- Also, the agriculture department made some as a booby-trap which, though cute on the outside, are equipped with sinister scythes and chainsaws.
- Shōnen: With cooking.
- Shrinking Violet: Elle
- Soul Jar: Dogma's noose contains the souls of all the people he's killed. Probably best not to think too hard on it.
- Stalker with a Crush: Sagane in chapter 7 left a note pinned with a knife on Satoru's locker... which she was then inside.
- Satoru actually calls her a stalker when she pulls out a picture of Hakka.
- Supernaturally Delicious and Nutritious: Dogma couldn't find this, so he's going to make Satoru become it.
- Technicolor Fire: The one time Dogma set Morisaki on fire, the flames were apparently black.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Morisaki, Tachibana ad Satoru argue and fight but manage to band together to save Elle. Hakka lampshades this
- Morisaki and Tachibana in general. Both like Satoru and the other classmates but the two fight and comes to blows whenever they are around each other.
- Training from Hell: Quite literally, with the demon Dogma trying to make Satoru into a true chef this way.
- Tsundere: Fur Idol Fuurin
- Matsuo Mikazuki, who wants a friend to make udon with... and then promptly runs away from Satoru while screaming "Shut up and die!" at the end of chapter 16, after making udon with him.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: In chapter 15, Dogma becomes human by drinking a potion.
- Wingding Eyes: Dogma has cross-shaped pupils.
- Yandere: Sagane
